French Revolutionary Wars

The French Revolutionary Wars was a series of military conflicts between the infant French Republic and a variety of European powers armed for the invading. With the Storming of the Bastille and the fall of the Kingdom of France in 1789, the other European absolute monarchies, fearful that they would soon be overthrown, pledged to restore King Louis XVI of France to his throne. France declared war on Austria in April 1792, Prussia in summer 1792, and Britain, the Dutch, and the Spanish in 1793. For the duration of the 1790s the French fought not only on their eastern borders but also at sea with the British, Dutch, and Spanish and in Italy with the Austrians; at one point, French general Napoleon Bonaparte embarked on an Egyptian Campaign against the Ottoman Empire to threaten British India. Although France's Egypt campaign was defeated and many of their government members were guillotined in the Reign of Terror, France eventually defeated all of their enemies and turned almost all of Italy's city-states, the United Provinces, and the Rhenish city-states into protectorate states.

A New Age of Warfare
The setbacks France had experienced in the Seven Years War led to a drive for reform of the army and navy. Army officer Jean-Baptiste de Gribeauval was responsible for a new artillery system, with an improved range of standardized guns for aggressive deployment on the battlefield.

Another influential figure was the Comte de Guibert, who prophesied a new age of warfare in which fast-moving armies would seek to annihilate the enemy in decisive battles: "The hegemony over Europe", he wrote, "will fall to the nation which ... becomes possessed of manly virtues and creates a national army".

Military Academies
Reformers such as Guibert and Gribeauval met resistance from the French nobility, however, who defended their monopoly of the higher officer ranks. New military academies were created for the sons of the poorer nobility - Napoleon Bonaparte was one beneficiary - but even they could mostly progress only in the artillery or engineers.

New Recruits
After the revolution of 1789, large numers of aristocratic officers emigrated - about 5,500 out of 9,500 by 1792. It was thus out of necessity as well as principle that the officer corps was opened to all classes in 1790, with NCOs and junior officers soon promoted to high rank. New infantry regulations adopted in 1791 embraced Guibert's theories on aggressive tactics and strategy.

First Coalition
The French declaration of war on Austria that came in April 1792 was motivated by little more than a desire to maintain popular enthusiasm for the revolution. It took little account of the state of the French Army, which since 1789 had lost the majority of its officers as well as many regular soldiers. An appeal for volunteers partly made up the numbers of infantry, but there was almost no cavalry and the supply system was in chaos. An initial French advance into the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium) was a fiasco, with most of the volunteers fleeing the moment they came under fire. Undaunted by this, the revolutionary government declared war on Prussia that summer.

Initial Victories for France
The Austrians and Prussians were preoccupied with Poland, which they were preparing to partition with Russia. Despite a bold declaration of support for Louis XVI in 1791, they had little interest in restoring his monarchial powers. But a prostrate France was a tempting target and, after lengthy preparations, an army led by the Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick crossed the French frontier in August 1792. It advanced as far of Valmy, where on 20 September the artillery of the old French royal army put up stiff enough resistance to persuade Brunswick to withdraw. The elated French army now returned to the offensive, again invading the Austrian Netherlands and defeating a smaller Austrian force at Jemappes.